Carryin' the Banner In High School
by missanna444
Summary: Modern Newsies AU! Crutchie is a freshman and it's his first day of high school. Can Jack help him survive the ups and downs? Bad summary, but read on!
1. Chapter 1

"Jack... I'm too scared to go to high school." Crutchie sighed. It was the night before the first day of school. Jack and Crutchie were sitting on the rooftop of Jack's apartment building, as they often did.

"Look, I know I make it out to be all bad, but you'll be fine. Just stick with me and the guys whenever you can. Just stay away from the Delanceys and you'll be fine." The older boy reminded his friend.

"Who are the Delancys again?" He knew the answer to this. But he wanted to be sure.

"The idiot jocks who can beat us up and still get away with it."

"That's what makes me nervous. I can't get beat up on my first day! I've got a crutch, for cryin' out loud! I can't get away too quick." Crutchie looked nervous. "I've heard stories about seniors beating up freshman all the time."

Jack looked over at his friend. "Don't worry about it, okay? I already asked if I could help you out for the first week or so till you get used to it. Somehow I managed to get the principal to agree. What can I say, I'm pretty persuasive!" He gave his friend a lopsided grin.

"Still... I dunno." Crutchie sighed. Jack stood up and offered his friend a hand.

"C'mon, it's getting late. I'll see you at the bus stop in the morning." He said, helping Crutchie to stand up.

"Alright... And you'll save me a seat on the bus?"

"Of course! I'm a good friend, aren't I?" He joked with another grin. Crutchie just rolled his eyes.

"See ya tomorrow, Jack..."

The next morning came all too quickly. Crutchie didn't sleep much the night before and was tired. Maybe a little too tired. When he got on the bus, it turned out that Jack hadn't been able to save him a seat because of all the kids on the bus. Poor Crutchie was so tired that he made the mistake of sitting in the back of the bus.

"'Ey, who's the little pipsqueak sitting in my seat?" Called a mean sounding voice. The voice came from a angry looking Oscar Delancey. Jack saw Oscar storming towards Crutchie and immediately began climbing over the seats of the bus to defend his friend. Oscar grabbed the front of Crutchie's t-shirt and lifted him up.

"Don't you know this seat is reserved for me? No freshman allowed!" He growled. Crutchie looked up at him, terrified. Where was Jack when he needed him?

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know... I-I'm new, I didn't meant to-" he stuttered. Oscar glared at him.

"Do ya need me to knock some sense into ya?" He threatened.

"Hey! Don't you dare!" Jack had pushed his way between the two of them.

"What do you want, Kelly?"

"Pick on someone your own size for once, huh? He didn't do nothing to you."

"Are you suggesting that I beat you up too? 'Cause if I need a reason, I've certainly got one." Oscar glared at him. Jack backed him further away from Crutchie.

"If you lay one finger on this kid..." He said with a steely glare. Oscar swallowed nervously. He wasn't used to being confronted, even by Jack Kelly.

"You'll regret standing up for this loser, Kelly, mark my words."

"Says who? You? And what's your proof? Because you're bigger than me? Yeah, we always need people who bully others for no reason." His sarcasm was biting in the last sentence.

A chorus of "Oooh!" went up in the crowded bus. All eyes were on Oscar to see his reaction. All eyes, that is, except for a girl with long curly brown hair. She was watching Jack with a look of astonishment on her face. She had seen Jack before, but never met him. Something was different about him, something good. What he had said and done for his friend would make a great article for the school newspaper...

 **Short start, I know, but it will get better!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Excuse me… Coming through… Move, please. School newspaper journalist coming through… " The girl with the dark curly hair from the bus was pushing her way through the crowded lunch line to get to Jack. She managed to get behind him, accidentally bumping into him.

"Hey, watch it!" Jack muttered. "You almost sent my lunch flying!"

"You actually eat the school lunches?" the girl replied with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. As were any school lunches, theirs were notorious for being practically inedible.

"Don't care how good it is, food is food." he replied with a shrug.

"Listen, there's something I'd like to talk to you about, if you don't mind." The girl continued, ignoring his comment.

"Usually when people are this eager to talk to me, I'm in trouble. What's this about?" He asked as he paid for his lunch.

"Well, it's-"

"Excuse me, are you going to pay for that?" Asked a lunch lady, gesturing to the apple the girl was holding in her hand.

"Oh! I brought it from home. I just wanted to talk to this young man here, I'm not actually buying anything." She explained. The lunch lady gave her a look like she didn't believe her.

"Miss, you'll have to pay for that. You can't just take food. It'll be $1.75."

"$1.75? For something that's mine?" She exclaimed, then muttered, "If my father knew about this..." But, she gave in and gave the woman the money and ran off to find Jack. She sat next to him at the lunch table.

"You mind explaining what this whole thing is about?" He asked when she sat down.

"What happened on the bus. I think it's incredible how you stood up for your friend. The world needs more people like that. So I want to write an article for the school newspaper about it." She replied.

"I'll have to take a look at your writing first." He said. Not that he cared much, he just didn't want to answer her. "What's your name? I'll look it up."

"Katherine Plumber. That's the name I write under." She replied quickly.

"Miss Plumber, huh? Alright... Oh, what did you mean earlier 'If my father knew about this...'? What's so special about him?" He asked out of curiosity.

"Oh, well, just that he, um... He could get them into trouble for making me pay that money, that's all." Katherine explained. Jack nodded. Just then, Crutchie made his way over to the table.

"Oh! You're the one from the bus this morning! Would you be willing to do an interview for me?" She asked. Crutchie nodded eagerly.

"Sure! What's it for?"

"An article I'm writing. I'm trying to get Jack to help too. But he's being stubborn." She beamed at him.

"Cool! We should do it, Jack! It'll be awesome! Our names will be in the school paper!" Crutchie grinned.

"I dunno..." Jack sighed.

"Please, Jack? Please?" The younger boy pouted, knowing his friend couldn't resist.

"Oh alright, fine, I'll do the interview."

A/N: Agan, very short, but I'm trying.


	3. Chapter 3

A few days later, Katherine had managed to set up interviews with both of the boys. After school, she had them come to the meeting for the school newspaper. Crutchie was fairly excited about this, glad to be a part of something that likely wouldn't get him hurt. Jack, on the other hand, was less excited about this. Why couldn't they go somewhere besides school? It wasn't like he was very popular anyways, but if his friends found out he was going to this club, he'd never hear the end of it.

Jack and Crutchie walked into the room to find Katherine sitting at a computer, ready to type and take notes, while a bunch of boys were wildly chatting with each other and working on seemingly random projects. One of the boys looked up.

"Jack? What are you doin' here?" He asked. Jack looked at him, realizing with a little bit of embarrassment that it was one of his friends.

"Romeo! Oh, uh, I'm just helping with one of the articles, that's all." He said.

"Are you drawing a picture for it or something? That'd be so cool!" Romeo grinned.

"No, actually... I'm being interviewed for it." Jack replied quietly, as if it was some horrible fate he had to face.

"That's cool, too!" Romeo didn't see how anything about the school newspaper could be embarrassing.

"What are you doing here, anyways? I thought you didn't like school activities."

"Well it's not just me, actually. It's the other guys too." Romeo replied. Jack looked around. Sure enough, all of his friends were in the room, some writing, some doing other activities. One of the other boys, Henry, walked over.

"Hey Jack!" He grinned.

"Seriously, what are all you guys doing here? I thought you all hated anything related to school."

"It turns out we were wrong. See, we all had to do some sort of after school activity to get credit for English class. But it turns out that this is really fun!" Henry shrugged.

"But none of you can write very well. I know that for a fact."

"We don't have to write to be a part of the newspaper. Some of us conduct interviews, some of us just do the typing. But most of us do the advertising. You know, making sure people buy it." Henry explained.

"Oh. Well that's not so bad, I guess." Jack shrugged. At that moment, Katherine walked over to the small group of boys.

"Hey Crutchie! Hi, Jack. You two ready to be interviewed?" She said with a bright smile.

"Ooh, can I go first?" Crutchie volunteered immediately.

"Sure!" She smiled and lead him over to the desk where the computer was situated.

"So, why did you sit in the back of the bus in the first place? That's a pretty brave thing to do." She asked.

"Well, I didn't know it was bad. See, Jack is my best friend and he was helping me with what I should and shouldn't do as a freshman. I'm pretty sure he mentioned not sitting at the back of the bus, but I was so tired that morning that I must've forgot!" He said, with a slight laugh. She nodded.

"Now, some people would be embarrassed by someone else coming to their rescue. What do you think about that?" She asked.

"I wasn't embarrassed at all. I mean, with my crutch here, I couldn't have gotten away. So it was either get beat up or get saved by Jack. I'd much rather get saved by my friend." He said after thinking about it for a long moment. Katherine smiled.

"You look up to him, then?"

"Who wouldn't? Jack's the best friend someone could ask for." Crutchie grinned. After a few more questions, it was Jack's turn for an interview.

"So," Katherine smiled brightly at him. "Tell me about yourself."

"And why do you need to know? All I did was stop a bully from hurting my friend." Jack commented. Katherine rolled her eyes.

"I don't need to know every single thing about you. I just want to know what made you stand up for him like that. Not everyone has that kind of courage." She replied.

"Oh, right. I dunno, Crutchie's my friend, that's all. Besides, Oscar's just a big jerk. No one was standing up to him, so I did."

"And have you ever been bullied yourself?"

"Why do you care?" Jack wasn't about to admit to anything that could make his current relationship with school bullies any worse than it already was.

"Jack, it's just easier to write about if there's another reason you stood up for Crutchie." She sighed in exasperation.

"Fine. Yes, I've been bullied, specifically by Oscar. Why? I'm an artist. I draw. Apparently it's not normal for a guy to draw. There, you happy now?" He said quickly, wanting to get it over with. Katherine wrote all of this down eagerly, knowing it would make a great story.

"Great, now all I need is your permission to-" she looked up and he was gone. She looked at the other boys who shrugged. Where had he gone?


End file.
